


Palpitations

by Colamiilk



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Excessive amounts of blood, Hallucinations, I'm going to be real here, I'm sorry its just medical treatments and some gay, Kinda boring..., M/M, Spiders, Stitches, baby coma, head injuries, just being fucking obliterated and needing to sleep for a year, mini coma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:15:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26790508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colamiilk/pseuds/Colamiilk
Summary: Thinking ‘correctly’ wasn’t what was important right now. Keeping Giriko safe and alive was, and he could do that no matter how insane he was. He could do that just relying on instinct in all honesty.Sanity wasn’t required for this situation.---Goretober 2020: Support/Carrying/Enemy to Caretaker
Relationships: Giriko/Justin Law
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8
Collections: Goretober 2020





	Palpitations

**Author's Note:**

> woo day 3! I'm absolutely exhausted and because of that I've decided I won't do all these prompts in order like your supposed because ehhh its just easier this way and either way I'm doing them so... idk

Justin was a Death Scythe. That meant he was strong. 

But apparently not strong enough to lug his insufferable roommate home. At least, not without a lot of trouble. 

Which is how Justin had found himself hot and heaving each breath with a very unconscious Giriko slung over his back, his entire chest slouched over the death scythe’s head. To say it was uncomfortable was an understatement. If it weren’t for the fact that the concrete would definitely tear right through Giriko’s pants and shred into the enchanter’s skin Justin probably would’ve just dragged him across the city and risked popping his arms out of their sockets. He was starting to wonder if this was going to end with him getting squished like a bug under Giriko’s weight. 

That would be humiliating. It wasn’t even like Giriko was even all that heavy, Justin had lifted him before. Sent him flying in fights. It just turned out that momentum was amazing and trying to topple someone and throw them ruthlessly to the ground was a hell of a lot easier than trying to balance them on your back and carry them a goddamn mile up the stupid academy stairs. Especially when they were so much bigger than you that their head kept bumping into and in front of your own. Which was something that was only making him, embarrassingly, blush harder than someone ever should in reaction to an unconscious body.

He was kind of pissed off that this was so hard in all honesty. Giriko could lift him and carry him around with pretty much no issue, even when he was struggling. He had thought it would be easy for him to do the same. It wasn’t like he was any weaker than Giriko. He wasn’t. At least in battle he wasn’t any weaker, but in lifting things… well apparently he really really was. He supposed the excuse there was that he didn’t lift bags and boxes of heavy clay all day, and that he really didn’t do much physical activity at all unless he was explicitly asked to or was fighting. But that was a pretty lame excuse. Well… not a lame one but an excuse. Trying to give himself a reason to be weaker without guilt. 

Throwing Giriko further up his back he huffed. He was sweating so much it was gross. It was dripping off of him and he couldn’t even wipe it away with his hands stuck under Giriko’s legs. He really wished the enchanter was less of a dumbass. Justin still couldn’t believe that he had gotten knocked out like that. He was supposed to be the fast one between them. The one that could dodge anything on his moving chains. And to be fair to Giriko he hadn’t gotten hit for a very long time. He had kept their target on the defensive almost the entire time, relentlessly attacking like he always did and zipping away the second they tried to strike back. He had been doing a good job up until the second he got hit. 

But then he had just  _ dropped _ . Justin had been in a complete shock for a good while. Looking back now he realized he had never seen Giriko take a direct hit like that before. He always managed to escape by a hair or somehow soften the blow with his chains or another type of block. It had never occurred to Justin before now, but he supposed Giriko wasn’t able to take as strong of hits as other weapons could. After all, all Giriko really had was his chains. He didn’t have the ability to turn himself to metal without sacrificing a good deal of his flexibility, and without that his entire fighting style kind of fell apart…

Justin’s mouth turned into an ugly frown as he made it to the top of the staircase and kicked open one of the double doors. He didn’t like that. He didn’t like knowing how vulnerable Giriko was in fights. He didn’t like seeing how much a simple hit to the back of the head could do to the enchanter. For someone like Justin, someone whose entire fighting style revolved around forcing people to hit him as much as possible so he could lock onto them and force them into close combat, it was hard for him to even imagine getting through a fight without being hit. It made him worried knowing Giriko had to do that every time. 

The rational part of his brain knew that Giriko had been alive and fighting like this for so much longer than Justin had even been imagined existing. But the part of him that loved the enchanter made his hands claw possessively into the man’s thighs. Words couldn’t even describe how much hate he was filled with knowing that someone could do this to Giriko. That someone had. Killing them once hadn’t been enough. 

Giriko had hit the floor with a weird gurgling noise and within seconds Justin was there. His limbs shot into the ground and formed a protective cage around the enchanter as he tore up the remainder of the disgusting group of thugs who thought they could somehow birth the next kishin with his gates. He hated himself for not doing that in the first place. He hadn’t thought it was necessary. He hadn’t wanted to risk stabilizing himself in the middle of a battle and leave himself vulnerable to any attack. 

It turned out that they weren’t smart or fast enough to kill his vulnerable body in the center of the madness though. They had barely managed a few cuts on his unmoving form before they were all dead. It was pathetic. He was barely bleeding despite the fact that it would’ve been child’s play to kill him in that state. It was proof of what low level targets they were. If Justin hadn’t had Giriko to worry about he would’ve taken the time to execute each one with his judgement blade. Would’ve made it painfully slow for them. Made them regret doing what they did to Giriko. 

But alas he had to worry about his stupid chainsaw passed out on the ground under him. The one that didn’t wake up when Justin unbound his limbs from the ground and freed him from his makeshift cage, the one that didn’t wake up even after being shaken relentlessly while the guillotine cried in panic. The one that still wasn’t up after being lugged all the way home. 

If it weren’t for the fact that Giriko was breathing so fucking heavily on his ear he’d be worried that the enchanter had died somehow. But since he was, Justin was just pissed off. How on earth was he still asleep? How long could someone stay out from just a kick? Seriously, it was just a smack to the back of the head. He should’ve been up within  _ minutes _ . It had been over an hour at this point. It had been over an hour and Justin was getting unbelievably angry because if he didn’t he’d undoubtedly go crazy with panic. He kept telling himself it was just Giriko being a lazy asshole that didn’t want to wake up. Kept telling himself that the enchanter was fine. That he was going to wake up any minute with that infuriating smile that loved to tease him for getting in a flurry about something so minor. 

This was minor. 

It had to be. It needed to be.

The stairwell that led up to the second floor of the academy was Justin’s final hurdle before he could drop the other’s absurdly heavy body. But god were his legs shaking. Each step felt like he was risking completely snapping his leg under their combined weight. He was starting to wonder if exhaustion was the reason he was shaking like a leaf or if it was panic. He sorta knew the answer was both, but he didn’t want to admit that his blurring vision was a result of his brain dripping out of his ears. He didn’t want to admit he wasn’t in his right mind anymore. He couldn’t admit it. If he did, the nurse on staff might make him leave Giriko with them. 

He’d rather die than be forced away from the enchanter right now. He didn’t care if it was for their own good. He already knew he wouldn’t hurt Giriko even at his worst and he didn’t give a fuck about his own safety. If his mind wanted to short circuit right now it was just going to have to wait a fucking second while he took care of this. He didn’t care if it’d kill him to ignore. He’d pick turning into an incoherent mess of delusional sickness over leaving before he knew the other was ok. 

It wasn’t like he needed to be able to understand anyone or communicate properly anyway. All he needed to be able to do was watch through hazy eyes and make sure Giriko woke up. Staying coherent didn’t really matter. Being able to act normal didn’t really matter. Thinking ‘correctly’ wasn’t what was important right now. Keeping Giriko safe and alive was, and he could do that no matter how insane he was. He could do that just relying on instinct in all honesty. 

Sanity wasn’t required for this situation. 

It was of course  _ preferred _ , but as he felt his vision blink in and out and his skin start to crawl with paranoia he figured that ship had already sailed. In truth his mind had probably checked out the second he saw the older man hit the floor. Which only made sense if you asked him. Even the most strong willed, steel minded people he knew got weird when someone they loved got hurt. Azusa was an absolutely horrific example. So why should anyone be allowed to punish him for getting weird when Giriko got hurt? Because there was some sort of identifiable proof of the chemicals in his brain working differently? That was bullshit. 

Justin’s skin was getting hot just thinking about it. His grip on Giriko was getting tight enough that if the man was conscious he’d probably be desperately trying to get the scythe to ease up. But he wasn’t conscious. He wasn’t and that was making Justin even more upset. Usually he was the type that would agree with whatever the DWMA said about his madness, he knew first hand how harmful it was, how much he could hurt himself with it. But even just the  _ idea  _ of someone thinking he’d hurt Giriko with it was enough to make him livid. 

There was no one on earth that would take care of Giriko better than Justin. It didn’t matter how insane he was, he would never let the chainsaw hurt.  _ His  _ chainsaw hurt. Giriko was his. His to take care of, his to take responsibility for,  _ his _ . And Justin wasn’t the type of asshole to hurt someone he had taken that kind of claim over. He wasn’t fucking  _ evil  _ like that. Just the self imagined implication he was making made him ram his foot horribly into the infirmary’s sliding door and kick it open with a deafening thwack noise. 

Luckily,  _ thankfully _ , there was no one inside. Which meant there wasn’t any concern about someone trying to separate them. And he hadn’t scared anyone half to death by slamming the door open like he had, which was also good he guessed. He didn’t really care all that much about that though. They would’ve lived. He had scared enough people by slamming open doors like that to know it really wasn’t that big of a deal. 

Moving over to one of the further beds he inelegantly let the enchanter flop onto it. Giriko looked… really dead. He wasn’t moving to reposition himself at all so he was kind of a weird pile of bent limbs right now. Justin’s head hurt. This was a mess, all of it. He didn’t even know where to start with everything. He had never been responsible for another person like this. He had always been the youngest, the baby that everyone rolled their eyes at if he even tried to take charge. 

He was someone who spent their entire life following, letting people lead him where they thought was best and had him do what they thought was best. Dragging Giriko’s ass to Lord Death with the firm request that was verging on a demand was the first time he had  _ ever  _ tried to take responsibility for anyone or anything that wasn’t himself or his missions. And while taking care of Giriko wasn’t easy it was really just a matter of keeping him in line. Not… this. 

This was something entirely foreign to Justin. He had never taken care of someone’s physical well being before. Sans his own. And even then he didn’t do a great job of it. He supposed he had taken care of the other black out drunk multiple times before, but even then Giriko had been… well,  _ conscious _ , at least while most of the drama happened. So he could more or less tell Justin what he needed. He could help and make sure the scythe didn’t make some kind of really stupid mistake. He couldn’t do that right now. All the decisions were falling entirely on Justin’s shoulders. Which was a lot of responsibility. 

Wiping the sweat off his face Justin laughed uncomfortably. He knew he had just been relieved that no one was here. And he really still was, he did  _ not  _ want to be dragged away and told he would only make things worse. Because he knew that wasn’t true. He had been the one stopping Giriko from accidentally killing himself this past year. He could do this. He knew he could. But this was still more than just a little scary. Especially because he was kind of worried Giriko would jump up and kill him if he started touching him while he was unconscious. 

Justin’s eyebrows bunched up in frustration. He couldn’t just keep standing here. He had to do something. He couldn’t be afraid. He had seen post battle medical care before, had done minor operations on himself. He just had to mimic that. Unfortunately his experience really only came from Azusa, who… was not very gentle. He supposed that didn’t matter though. It was Giriko and even if it wasn’t he was out like a light. He obviously wasn’t going to remember any of this. Still, Justin couldn’t stop his face from turning red as he grabbed the enchanter’s arms and ripped upward to straighten his limp body out.

It felt kind of wrong to be doing, like he was probably hurting the man worse. He quickly dropped Giriko down again, and made an uncomfortable, unhappy face at the somewhat straighter but still not comfortable position the other was in. He was doing a horrible job with this. He had barely started and he already knew that if Giriko ever found out what happened here he’d never hear the end of it. Groaning into his hands Justin steeled himself and tried his best to pretend Giriko was someone he didn’t know. Someone he had been told to move despite the fact he didn’t want to. 

It worked, and he managed to get the enchanter into a lying position but he was a bit worried that he had been too rough and that the other would wake up weirdly bruised. He supposed there was no going back now though. He had to just keep moving forward. 

He wasn’t really sure to what though. He still didn’t know what was wrong with Giriko. He still didn’t know why the other was still unconscious despite the fact he definitely should’ve woken up by now. Pushing Giriko into a sitting position he sat behind the man to look at the back of his head, grimacing at how much blood was clotting up in his hair. It looked really really bad… they had certainly rattled up Giriko’s brain hard. 

Rubbing his face against the wound as if he could heal it up with just love Justin whined, he didn’t know how to fix this, Giriko was so limp it was scary. It hadn’t seemed all that bad watching the injury from a distance or carrying him home but now that he was looking at it he realized it was far far worse than he thought, it looked like they had split Giriko’s skull with how hard they threw him to the ground. Kissing the bloody gash Justin ignored the taste of blood as he tried to make it better in the same way the nun’s growing up had kissed their scraped knees. 

Justin couldn’t deny that at this point he was crying a bit, scared now that he saw the extent of Giriko’s injury. He had to at least try to patch it up but he felt frozen, he didn’t want to let go of Giriko for even a second. His heart was aching so bad it honestly felt like he was going to have a heart attack or something, a elephant stepping on his chest squishing his heart into a painfully tight space while a bird pecked at it intermittently to give an extra stab of pain every once in a while.

Slowly, painfully getting up he laid Giriko back down and kissed at his cheek, his hand warmly on the man’s chest to steady himself so he didn’t crash down on the other with the weight of his grief and start to sob. He was getting ahead of himself anyway, Giriko was ok, there was no reason to worry, it was all going to be ok. 

The cabinets were of course locked, not wanting students to decide they wanted to play mummy or something and use all the gauze… Justin wasn’t sure if he had the keys to it or not. With his position in the academy he had an annoyingly heavy keyring with keys to places all over the academy, but he really only used the downstairs ones. Sticking every key he couldn’t identify on his keyring into the lock and twisting it to see if it’d open he finally managed to get open on his 5th attempt. 

What was inside wasn’t exactly amazing and none of it perfectly spelled out for him what exactly he was supposed to do here, but he found swabs and disinfectants and even he wasn’t so uneducated to not know basics like that. 

Picking what he decided would be somewhat helpful he went back to try and lift Giriko back up, growing far too annoyed at how heavy the man was and how inconvenient the placing of his wound was. It took a bit of maneuvering but he got Giriko to lay face down in his lap, letting him kneel on the bed behind him and look at the gash head on. It… It was something Justin hadn’t been prepared to see.

He had seen it when he was first looking, but now that he was looking close enough to try and fix it he felt sick. It went down to white skull, right on the back of the head where his training for the execution room said the occipital lobe was… The idea of Giriko waking up blind thundered through Justin’s mind and made him tense up, holding his breath. No.. no that was him being overly worried. 

Still when he looked back he noticed a weird black mark hiding near one of the edges of Giriko’s wound, some type of debris or something… getting his finger in to try and flick it away he stumbled back and screamed when a spider crawled out and began making it's way up his arm, not shaking free no matter how much he flailed his arm and smacked at it. Running back into the wall he tried to jump as if that would somehow get him away from something that was on him. It wasn’t until he saw if disgusting fangs open and sink into his skin that he realized it wasn’t real. There was no pain and as he slowly moved over to try and flick it off his fingers went right through it as if it was smoke. 

Smacking at it he tried everything he could to just brush the illusion away… it didn’t work, but it also wasn’t really bothering him now that he knew it wasn’t real. Giving it a weird look he sighed before going back to what he was doing, not all this shocked this time to see more spiders wanting to crawl on him. Whether this was some spell Arachne had left that was cursing him or just his own mind spinning with fears he didn’t consciously understand yet didn’t matter, what mattered here was closing up Giriko’s wound. And honestly? He was pretty pissed off Arachne was getting in his way, wasn’t she supposed to care about Giriko? 

Ignoring the stupid spiders he ripped open an alcohol wipe, starting to mercilessly wipe around and inside the wound while also ripping another one open with his teeth as he did it. He probably needed to stitch Giriko shut, but also he wasn’t sure there was enough skin to pull over his skull right… throwing the dirty wipe somewhere random he moved to use the next one, grimacing as his view of Giriko’s skull got clearer with all the dirt and blood disappearing. His vision was starting to get a bit weird though, almost like a tunnel vision… whatever.

He had known going into this he was going to start getting weird the longer it went on, but was easy to dismiss, he got up again to get a sterile pack with needle and thread. Fixing wounds wasn’t Justin’s forte at all, but he could at least get it shut and hopefully that would be enough. It was a bit too late to wash his hands and shove on gloves considering he had just been digging around in the man’s head with no concerns, but he did anyway, mostly looking to stretch this moment out and breathe, trying to regain a bit of his sanity before starting. 

The water ran red off his hands at first, swirling down the drain endlessly, the bright lights catching the drops of water in a beautiful sparkling shimmer, promising to clean him of this tragedy. It never did though, the water never managed to get all the red off of him. In fact, soon enough the water started to come out a dark ruby itself. Opaque and sticky like blood, complete with the gross scent of copper, clotting together and dropping like thick strands of gore swirling around in clumps and unable to make it down the drain right anymore. When Justin gave up and switched the sink off his hands were dripping with far more red than he started with, sticky and congealing, trying to bind his hands together and leave them useless.

Justin didn’t even bother trying to dry them off before ripping open the sterile pack and threading his needle. He was leaving little streaks of red everywhere, sparking the slightest bit of concern he would infect Giriko with whatever this was, but at the same time he knew it was all fake. Moving back over Justin fell back to the bed, ignoring the spiders that all ran away in fear as he dared to squish them all with his weight. Giriko was still passed out, his nose squishing against his knee inelegantly. The position made Justin raise an eyebrow in judgement, most of his fear having disappeared, at least for the time being, so he could finish this procedure before it was too late. 

Stabbing the needle in he fought with getting it all the way through the skin at first, wiggling it through and watching the flesh bend and stretch around before finally giving. Once he got the first stitch in it was fairly easy from there, just yanking as hard as he could after each one, watching Giriko’s head close up like a tightly laced corset. The white of his skull finally disappearing perfectly behind a beautiful curtain of red wounded flesh and honey wheat hair. 

Justin kissed the stitch as he finished it, feeling the bumpy flesh and sharp plastic dig into his lips as he wrapped his arms around Giriko’s neck. He still needed to bandage it up, but it was as fixed as it was getting now. Giriko’s heart seemed to still be beating, his breaths were slow but still heavy and there… 

The gauze from earlier was still sitting on the bed and Justin moved to sloppily bandage up the enchanter’s head, he wasn’t very good at it but as he got it covered up he figured it was good enough. Yanking Giriko’s face up from off the bed Justin huffed, pulling him back so he could lay down right again. It was amazing how  _ out  _ Giriko was, Justin could tell it was a bad wound but it was really impressive that nothing was waking him up right now… 

Brushing off his coat Justin looked around the room, trying to see if anything would remind him of something he was forgetting. He lazily pulled the curtain around Giriko’s bed so if someone did decide to come they’d know someone was sleeping… Oh… sleeping. Justin looked around for the stuff they had for people staying the night… opening cabinets and drawers with tired curiosity.

There weren’t any blankets around, nothing to protect Giriko from… from whatever blankets did. Cold maybe, Justin had never seen Giriko get cold before but that was just something you were supposed to do when people were sick… right? Looking around some more he relented to the fact there wasn’t  _ anything  _ remotely useful and started to unbutton his coat, throwing the oversized thing over Giriko, and giving an awkward frown when it wasn’t big enough to cover past his shins… it was something though. 

Giriko didn’t look much better than he had despite it, his head wrapped up but still bleeding and he was still completely limp in a way that didn’t really look as much asleep as  _ dead _ . Now that everything had calmed down Justin could feel his heart strain, so tight and hurt that it was having issues pumping blood right. He had done everything he was supposed to. He did it all so he wanted Giriko up  _ now _ , to pop up and be his normal cranky awful self and yell at Justin for treating him like he couldn’t take care of himself… but he didn’t. He stayed limp and Justin couldn’t do anything about it. 

Realizing Giriko wouldn’t be waking up for a long time Justin bumped up the man’s limp arm and crawled under its warmth, snuggling in and moving around so Giriko was ‘holding’ him, his heavy arm awkwardly balanced on top of Justin. He could hear Giriko’s heart beating gently against his ear as he gave off pathetic worried whimpers, it felt so slow and quiet Justin was worried it was dying out, he didn’t know what was supposed to be normal and he was terrified of what could so easily happen. Kissing under the man’s chin he gave little nips in between each one, wondering if the sharp feeling would wake him up. It didn’t.

It was weird sharing his robes as a blanket, and it didn’t really fit over both of them so Justin tried to keep it entirely over Giriko for the most part… but still it didn’t feel right… it didn’t feel right to be so close to Giriko without hearing the man snore or feel his arms unbearably tight around him in a protective hug. The kind of hug that was filled with undealt with stress and fear, worry that he’d lose someone all over again. Justin had never understood the feeling until now. Now he gripped onto Giriko’s shirt with tiny fists that wouldn’t let go for anything, scared that he had already lost what he had never considered a life without. 

A few shaking quiet sobs dropped down into Giriko’s shirt, quickly making a wet spot as Justin tried to hide away from everything. This couldn’t be happening, he, he refused to believe this was happening… Things couldn’t end like that, Giriko was just a lazy asshole. Justin kept telling himself that as the sun finally disappeared in sunset and the moon laughed at how pathetic he had become. The tears were making his head hurt, he was getting dizzy from it all but he couldn’t stop… 

Justin hadn’t even noticed he had fallen asleep in the middle of his crying until he felt warm lips over his own, chapped and bloodied. His eyes opened painfully, red and sore from his crying as he looked up to see Giriko, still coated in blood and now with very pronounced purple bruises that had finally developed, but awake. It was like his breath was stolen away, amazed to see Giriko looking at him, his eyes open and looking down at him with a tired affection.

“Were you sobbing all night without me little scythe? Your eyes are so tired and red.” Giriko’s voice was softer than usual, choked up with some kind of emotion Justin couldn’t really get a feeling for. 

“You woke up.” 

“Did you think I wouldn’t?” There was a pause there as Justin processed those words… and then his face turned red and teary, the beginnings of a full out meltdown as he nodded in a firm affirmation. Giriko picked him up before he managed even a single wail and held him close against his chest, close enough that Justin’s robes were now big enough to cover them. It only served to make the sob that wobbled out of Justin’s throat louder, horrified by feeling the very thing he knew he could’ve just lost forever. 

“Shh Justin it's ok, I’m ok… I wouldn’t just leave you here.” Justin could barely hear Giriko’s reassurances, sobbing so loud in his screechy grating voice everyone complained about because he didn’t have an indoor voice most of the time. Giriko probably hated the noise, especially with the killer headache he  _ had  _ to have woken up with after a head injury like that but Justin also couldn’t stop himself, he was wailing out all the pain in his soul, unable to think of anything but how much it hurt. 

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so scared and upset… shh… don’t worry…” A soft hand rubbed reassuringly down Justin’s back, up and down in an attempt to get him to calm down, a comforting touch Justin wasn’t sure if he had ever felt before. The shock of it and how nice it felt made him hiccup a bit, his sobs not ending but slowing down as he cuddled deeper into Giriko, savoring the sound of the man’s heartbeat. He was alive, he was alive and talking and holding Justin… 

“You took care of me, huh? I’d say I’m shocked but you seem way too hurt for that right now… come on, come on shhh.” Justin was blubbering, barely listening to Giriko anymore. Pulling at the other’s shirt he tilted his face up trying to get a kiss, Giriko obliged with a tired smile. 

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is for everyone who likes Giriko being taken care of, although I wish I could've given them more interaction then I managed :/ maybe later this month. I do have some stuff planned of him getting into shit so most likely I'll manage it. Anyway! I hope you enjoyed!


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